After a one-day school closure on Friday following violent brawling among Charlottesville High School students, the Charlottesville School Board has ordered teachers and administrators to spend the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving break working on a “reset” of the school climate while students begin their holiday break early.

According to an emailed statement from the school administration, “The goals for the two teacher workdays will be to allow for further review and improvements of safety protocols, better understanding of the expectations and disciplinary procedures within CCS’s Student Rights and Responsibilities, increased clarity around the division’s accountability expectations, and continued attention to staff wellbeing.”

Cell phone videos circulating on social media show mayhem breaking out on Thursday, Nov. 16, including an incident between two female students who could be seen wrestling, throwing punches and pulling hair as a crowd of student onlookers cheered and egged them on. So many teachers called in sick the following day that the school had to close for the day. Last week’s violence comes just two weeks after dozens of students brawled in the school library in an Oct. 30 incident that was also captured on cell phone video.

The chaotic and violent environment has made teaching nearly impossible, said David Wilkerson, a school counselor and wrestling coach, in an interview on Charlottesville Right Now.

“We have an extraordinary group of adults in the building that have created a vision and attempted to make it happen. And somewhere along the way, we had a disconnect and a relatively small portion of kids in the building have simply failed to access their education and or all the expectations that come with being a part of a public school,” he said.

Wilkerson said the problems with violence are affecting schools across the country, and social media plays a role.

“A 16-year-old firmly believes that hits on Instagram are more valuable than anything else. So there were kids that saw that as an opportunity to gain credibility, and they wanted to be a part of it. And that’s, I think, the hardest part, seeing the excitement and the joy and the celebration of violence and pain,” he said.

Both Charlottesville and Albemarle Schools did away with School Resource Officers in 2020 as an equity measure following the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed. Albemarle has reinstated SROs, but the City Schools have not done so.

In a joint interview on Charlottesville Right Now with Charlottesville Schools Superintendent Royal Gurley, school spokesperson Beth Cheuk told Charlottesville Right Now she doesn’t believe the absence of SROs accounts for the problem.

“School fights are up across the country, both in schools that kept SROs and in schools that did not keep SROs,” she said. “And so I don’t think that is exactly a one-to-one factor.”

“I echo that,” said Gurley. “I think what we have seen is a lot of community issues that spill back over into the school. In fact, when we’re processing with our students after the incidents, what we learned in some cases is that many of these students live two or three doors away from each other. So a lot of times there are some community issues and they just really surface in the school and it just happens that this is where they manifest themselves unfortunately. “

And Wilkerson doesn’t believe the return of SROs is a fix to the problem of violence in the hallways.

“A school resource officer cannot be a disciplinarian. They can’t be the person that’s telling a kid to go to class. And really, if a kid has to be told to go to class, then probably we failed somewhere earlier already because it needs to be an automatic expectation,” he said.

Finding a way to hold kids accountable is key, he said, and requires buy-in from some parents who have not previously supported the schools’ efforts.

“I think that many times when a parent is called to help and assist with helping the student realize that they have made a misstep, either the parent is not supportive of the school’s policy or they don’t answer the phone or they refuse to come pick up their child,” he said. “And it became too difficult to use the very limited resources that we have for punitive measures.”

Despite the difficult first few months of the school year, Wilkerson says the vast majority of CHS students arrive to school ready to learn and engage. He’s encouraged by the administration’s response to last week’s fights and subsequent closure due to teacher absence the following day. Gurley said the response includes the work sessions with teachers and plans for a new alternative school, where students who are disruptive or otherwise not succeeding at CHS will have internship and work opportunities during the day and classes at night.

Wilkerson feels hopeful.

“It’s very important that we have an incredibly devoted staff of teachers, administrators, and a superintendent who’s wonderful, and everybody’s trying to figure out the best way,” he said. “And I think now we’re finally finding a way to get on the same page, and I think we’re going to make tremendous progress. We have too many wonderful people for it not to get better from here.”

Listen to the full interview with David Wilkerson here.

Listen to the full interview with Beth Cheuk and Royal Gurley here.